This is Alexander’s only known performance in Greece so far. In 2007, 2 years before winning the Eurovision, he played songs from «Axion Estin» with the Oslo-based Vivaldi Orchestra in Plomari, Lesbos. Here you can listen the only two songs whose recording has become available from this concert, and watch photos. You can see Alexander at the piano in two of the photos.

Click CC for subtitles. Available in English (by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard), Russian (from hellas-songs.ru) and Greek (original). Subtitle syncing: Yannis P.

The Vivaldi orchestra has been founded and conducted by Alexander’s father, Igor Rybak. At the vocals we find the Greek-Norwegian mezzo soprano Marilena Zlatanou and the Arcadia Choir, also from Norway.

The two songs heard here are «Της αγάπης αίματα» (Blood of Love) and «Ένα το χελιδόνι» (Lone is the swallow). They both belong to the famous Oratory of Mikis Theodorakis «Axion Esti» («Ἄξιον Ἐστὶ» = “It is Truly Meet”, 1964), based on the homonym poem of the Nobel-laureate Odysseus Elytis (1960), inspired after the struggle of the Greek people against fascism from the beginning of WW-2 and onwards.